Thursday, August 23, 2012

Most people create trigger videos and upload them to YouTube, but I picked this up online a bit earlier: someone who goes by the name of Saoirse has decided rather than do that, he or she would opt for doing a live streaming ASMR roleplay instead. This is his or her first ASMR trigger video to boot. People are encouraged to leave comments and feedback during and after the performance.

The live stream is going to take place today, Thursday, August 23, 2012, at 18:00 PM GMT, and it will continue on until 20:00 PM (although on the Facebook event page, UCT+01 is also stated – not sure if it is in error). Saoirse claims the link to the live stream will be revealed at exactly 18:00 PM.

There are a few web presences online dedicated to this event. First off there’s a Facebook event page, Twitter, tumblr, and a YouTube account which has this video. This announcement was made today on all these sites, and the event was created just today. It does seem a bit last minute, and I’ve done my best to spread the word. Here’s to hoping it all goes smoothly and enough people get to tune in.

The album is dedicated to the ASMR community, and Hailey has decided to donate partial profits from the album for the specific purpose of researching ASMR, even considering ASMR Research & Support as the donatee. She reckons that seeing as it is a naturally occurring phenomenon, it may be used as a form of alternative medicine or therapy – this may be its potential purpose. I liken it to how cats purr not only because they are content, but for other reasons too, such as to heal themselves.

The album is titled Lucid Dreams (Lucid Dreaming is another topic of discussion that often crops up within the ASMR community), and is scheduled for this Fall, or Q3 2012. Subscribers will receive first access when the album is released. Currently Hailey claims that she wants more community participation in the album. So she wants people to record sounds and send them in, preferably in wav or high quality mp3 format, to be incorporated in some way in to the songs. Or you could stop by her website and give suggestions or feedback on the album or donate.

Seeing as a portion of the profits will go towards funding future ASMR research efforts, which is what most of us want more than anything else, please consider doing one of the three things above in order to contribute in some fashion towards the development of the album. I’ll also add a fourth thing you can all do, and that is to spread the word! Whether you share this blog post by way of a link, or blog about it yourself, tweet about it – let’s get the word out.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

The other day I blogged about ASMR Radio and how a revamped version of it was on its way. On Monday Whispering Weaver announced over at the ASMR Radio Facebook group that something he referred to as “Project: Volcano” would launch soon. This turned out to be ASMR Island, the successor to ASMR Radio, which was unveiled earlier this week.

ASMR Radio is back, but it’s not alone this time – also debuting is ASMR TV (which may or may not be related to another existing ASMR TV project), weekly articles, ASMR Index – which is a database of every known whisperer and “ASMRtist”, user submitted scripts, contests, chat, and of course a forum.

Seeing as ASMR Radio has now been absorbed in to this project, the old ASMR Radio website is no more, and the ASMR Radio Facebook group is closing soon – on Saturday, the 18th of August. In it’s place is the ASMR Island Facebook page. There may or may not be a Facebook group connected with ASMR Island in future.

It’s a very large and ambitious project, and is all ready garnering a bit of scepticism seeing as there were several issues with ASMR Radio, technical and otherwise, but I know the community hopes to see it succeed.

Monday, August 13, 2012

There’s not a week that goes by where I don’t see some mention of Wikipedia. Questions such as “Why isn’t there a Wikipedia article about this?”. “ASMR wiki” is one of the most commonly searched terms that leads people to this blog or my article on HubPages.

Long story short, last year there was an article on Wikipedia about ASMR that was put up by someone. We’re still not quite sure who it was. Envelope seized the opportunity to add most of the content to that page. Then the Wikipedia moderators came along and marked the page for deletion seeing as there was a “lack of scientific evidence” to suggest that such a thing even existed. They weren’t convinced. There was a lengthy discussion and despite our attempts to reason with the moderators, this proved futile.

So the article was taken down, and was archived on our own Research & Support wiki which has yet to be opened to the public.

Recently on Reddit, a topic was started where people decided, after ASMR having received some mainstream media coverage in the last several months, that they would have a crack at getting ASMR back on to Wikipedia. The article is being constructed in sandbox mode, which basically means it can be edited by the public, but isn't published as such. This means it can be carefully crafted to the point where it will be accepted on Wikipedia. All ready one of the moderators has given it his or her approval, saying that the article will qualify as an internet or cultural phenomenon. You decide whether that is a good thing or not.

But for people who want to push to get ASMR on to Wikipedia and get it to stay there, it’s something. It’s a start. There are at least a few recent articles that have been published over at VICE and Independent magazine, as well as the Huffington Post. It seems as though ASMR is becoming too large to just ignore now. We now have a few third party references or sources, which is oh-so-crucial. It might not be accepted for now under the medical conditions category where it was last year, but perhaps in future with sufficient scientific evidence, it may be possible. And how we get to that point is with more mainstream media exposure and an interest from the public at large. Then we might get somewhere, where some scientists who are craving something more important to work on than estimating how far a certain bat-like superhero can glide (seriously) will give this thing the attention it needs with the necessary resources, equipment and funding backing them.

If you head over there and decide to contribute to the article in progress, please just have a look at all the sources listed over on the subreddit topic linked to above before doing so. This will tell you what is acceptable and what you must do to make the article comply with Wikipedia’s standards. Then it has a much better chance of being approved.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Word about a live performance installation has been going around for a time. Just this week it was revealed that there will be such an event taking place in London, UK.

It’s called Video Haptics & ASMR and will happen on Friday the 10th of August, at 7:30pm (UTC+01), and will carry on until 9:30 PM at the Bussey building/CLF Art Cafe. This one night performance focuses on ASMR trigger videos, and looks to explore the ability to “perceive video haptically” – this refers to the sense of touch.

There’s limited information beyond that, but anyone looking to find out more, and get directions to the event, should visit the Video Haptics & ASMR event page on Facebook. You may contact Sara, the organiser of this event, for any queries you might have.

If you manage to attend, please let us know how it went and what took place!

Monday, August 6, 2012

Not too long ago, back in June this year, Whispering Weaver announced that his project, known as ASMR Radio, would be offline for maintenance, and was scheduled to back online in July. July came and went, and people wanted to know where ASMR Radio was. The Weave revealed over the weekend that ASMR Radio is coming back, but on a whole new scale, as this post’s title suggests.

There are plans for a new project – one that will be the successor to ASMR Radio. And Whispering Weaver is currently looking for people to fill positions, which will be voluntary at first, with the possibility of monetary consideration in future. ASMR Radio’s original crop of talent was said to be “hand picked”.

He’s looking for a couple of journalists; a couple of authors (not too sure what the difference is between this and a journalist, but I suspect he may be referring to trigger video makers by way of his description of the position); three live broadcasters for ASMR Radio, and a forum moderator. Amateurs and professionals may apply, and qualifications and experience, although not necessary, would be beneficial. You should also only apply if you have the time to spare for such an undertaking.

Head over to ASMR Radio’s Facebook group for more details, and contact Whispering Weaver, the creator and chief admin of the group, by way of a Facebook message if you wish to apply. No resumes or covering letters, or even referrals are necessary.

The project is still in development for the time being. No word on when it will be unveiled to the public, but just keep checking the ASMR Radio Facebook group for more details when they are released.

Site Updates

These are just mini-updates that I was too lazy or busy to make a post for. They also list changes or additions that have been made to the blog, for interest's sake and to follow how the blog is developing.